by Parnell Hall
“It’s perfectly simple,” I told him. “I’m a jobber. I want to buy from you at the 100 thousand price so I can undercut you with your own product and score a profit on the Whitney account.”
Murphy was visibly confused. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought you worked for Whitney Corp.”
“I do.”
“You buy for them.”
“That’s right.”
“And you want—let me see if I understand you correctly—you want to buy for yourself and then turn over the merchandise to your company, thereby making an additional profit for yourself in the process.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ll be taking our account with Whitney Corp. and getting us to provide the merchandise at a lower rate by combining it with another order that you will also get at a lower rate, which you will also turn over for a profit, probably by undercutting us with one of our other customers.”
“You got it.”
Murphy shook his head. “Mr. Armstrong,” he said, “that is illegal.”
“Well,” I said, “let’s say it’s unethical.”
Murphy still couldn’t believe his ears. “Wait a minute. Let me see here.” He picked up the account folder again. “All right, now look. Our 50 thousand bracket price is $4.90 a towel. Our 100 thousand bracket price is $4.80 a towel. So instead of selling 50,000 towels to two different accounts at $4.90 a piece we’d be selling them to you at $4.80 a piece and losing $5,000 a month.”
Bingo! My class genius had done the math for me. Now I knew what the figures were. I also knew what the product was, which couldn’t hurt.
“That’s right,” I told him.
“And,” Murphy went on, “in order to do it, we would have to be party to what you, yourself, describe as unethical.”
“This is true.”
“Mr. Armstrong,” Murphy said, shaking his head. “Why in the world would Mr. Albrect ever agree to such an outlandish proposal as that?”
“Because he needed the money,” I told him.
Murphy just stared at me. I sat and waited. It was all bullshit, of course. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about. I knew a little bit about jobbers and bracket prices from my father-in-law, but that was about it.
The actual logistics of it didn’t matter, though. As far as I was concerned, the only thing that mattered was whether or not Murphy was greedy.
He was.
“What do you mean, ‘he needed the money’?” Murphy asked, after a pause.
I had him.
“He needed the money,” I told him. “He was hard up for extra cash. In return for handling this little deal for me, Albrect was going to pull down a grand a month. Apparently, he could have used it.”
I sat back and let that sink in. A grand a month. I could see his mind racing. He probably had some bills—who doesn’t? Who couldn’t use an extra thousand dollars a month.
Murphy could. He said slowly, “And you’re offering me the same deal?”
“Bingo, right on the button,” I said.
“And just how was this supposed to work?”
“Easy. You increase the Whitney Corp. order from 25 to 50 thousand a month. You still bill the Whitney Corp. on the books, but the actual bills would be sent to a different address. To me. I would pay them in the name of the Whitney Corp. from a special account.”
“I see. And how would I know that—excuse me—that your credit was good?”
“You’d have to check me out, of course.”
“By calling your bank?”
“Of course not. You can’t do it through normal channels. You would have to do what Albrect did.”
“What was that?”
“Come to Miami and check me out.”
“Oh,” he said.
“When’s the next time you’re going to be in Miami?”
“I don’t know. None of my accounts are in Miami. Maybe, with Albrect gone—but we haven’t worked that out yet.”
“Then this will have to wait,” I told him. “I’m due back in New York in three months. I can bring you references then. I admit that’s not the same as if you got them yourself, but it’s the best I can do.”
“I see,” he said. He did not sound happy.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I know you can’t take a chance on me on a thing like that without checking me out, I understand that. But Albrect did check me out, and he got a complete credit check in writing before he said he’d O.K. the deal.”
“So?”
“So wouldn’t that satisfy you?”
“Maybe. Where would it be?”
“In his office. Where else?”
Albrect’s office was identical to Murphy’s, with the exception that, where Murphy’s was immaculate, Albrect’s was a holy mess. Files, letters, circulars, price lists, catalogues and memos were strewn everywhere, including the couch, the chairs, the coffee table, and the bar. A mound of it reposed on his desk.
It hadn’t taken much to persuade Murphy to search the office. The police had given it a once over, told the company to lock the office, and left. They’d never know we’d been in there. Besides, they’d never promised Murphy a thousand a month.
“The police do this?” I asked as we ploughed through the mound on Albrect’s desk.
He shook his head. “This is the way they found it, this is the way they left it. Albrect’s office was always like this. I thought he kept it this way deliberately so that people’d think he was always busy.”
“He seems to have succeeded,” I said.
Murphy was sifting through litter on the bar when I came across a small black notebook, tucked in the bottom corner of Albrect’s top right desk drawer. I palmed it, shoved it into my jacket pocket, kept on looking.
It was nearly two hours later when we called it quits. I hadn’t found anything else I considered significant and, oddly enough, we had not found any written record of Albrect’s credit approval of Nathan Armstrong.
“Well, that’s it,” I said. “We’re just gonna have to put this on hold till next time.”
Murphy’s regret was genuine. “That’s really a shame,” he said. “I don’t see why I can’t check your credit over the phone.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I told him. “It involves talking to some people you can’t talk to on the phone. What I mean is, they wouldn’t talk to you. I took Albrect to them in person and they were able to satisfy him that my credit was good. But it took a face-to-face meeting and a personal introduction.”
Murphy didn’t want to let go. “Well, maybe I could go without a credit check,” he said.
Christ! I realized I’d better ease off the sales pitch before I wound up with 50 thousand fucking towels. Fortunately, Murphy let it drop.
“Well,” I said. “This trip’s a total washout for me.”
“Yeah. It’s a shame.”
“It’s not just the order. See, I’m an old riverboat gambler from way back, you know. Albrect told me there was a casino operating right here in Manhattan. He was gonna take me there tonight.”
“Is that right,” Murphy said with a grin. “Well, Mr. Armstrong, things aren’t as bad as you think. I’d be delighted to take you there myself.”
“Oh, you know the place?” I asked.
“Know it?” he said. “Hell, I’m the one who told Albrect about it.”
Son of a bitch! First rattle out of the box. Murphy was Dumbo.
6.
THE LOCKSMITH TURNED THE KEY in his hands, looking it over. “It’s the key to a safe deposit box,” he told me.
That was interesting, seeing as how the key had been tucked in the plastic fold of the cover of Albrect’s address book.
“You mean in a bank?” I asked.
“I don’t know where else you’re gonna find a safe deposit box.”
“Can you tell me which bank?”
“Nope.”
“Well, what can you tell me?”
“Well, it ain’t any bank arou
nd here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cause I never seen this blank before. If it was for a bank around here, I would have this blank.”
“What do you mean by around here?”
“Huh?”
“How large an area you talking about? Where the bank wouldn’t be?”
“It wouldn’t be in Manhattan. It wouldn’t be in New York City. It probably wouldn’t be in New York State, and when I say New York State I mean Eastern New Jersey and Southern Connecticut too.”
“Who doesn’t,” I said.
“You wanna buy something?”
“Whaddya sell?”
“Keys and locks.”
“The only lock I’m interested in is the one that key fits.”
“That I haven’t got.”
“You know where it isn’t from. Any way to find out where it is from?”
“Could be.”
“Depending on what?”
“What it’s worth.”
“It’s worth ten bucks.”
He picked up the phone, dialed a number. “Jerry, Sam. I got a blank here for a safe deposit box, key 35732, can you tell me who makes ’em. . . . Uh huh. . . yeah. Thanks.”
He hung up the phone, looked at me, said nothing. I interpreted his silence correctly and laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
“Bailsey Manufacturing,” he said.
“Great,” I told him. “Now can I get ’em to tell me who they made those blanks for?”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, can I go there and ask?”
“You can if you want,” he said. “The company’s in Florida.”
I came out of the 42nd Street locksmith shop into the blazing heat of Times Square. The freaks were out in force. I slipped the key in my pocket, transferred my wallet, and caught the subway uptown to get my car.
The key was undoubtedly the most interesting thing in Albrect’s address book, though there were a couple of close seconds. One was a rather cryptic notation on an otherwise blank page: “7th and Burke N.W. 4:00.” The other was an address in Manhattan. The book held many Manhattan addresses—some belonged to women, some to businesses, some to friends—but only one was in the East Village, and only one carried a name that was unmistakably ethnic.
Now, I must admit I’m not great at identifying people’s backgrounds from their names. I know other people are. They’ll hear a name and go, “Oh, black” or “Oh, Jewish,” or whatever. As I said, I’m not good at that, but, nonetheless, if Guillermo Gutierrez wasn’t Hispanic, I’d eat my hat.
I drove to the address on East 7th Street between Avenues B and C. It was a five-story walk-up building in a row of similar structures, all in what could generously be described as poor repair. My building was brown, with cracked concrete steps leading up to a wood and glass door. Half the panes of glass were missing and the other half were cracked. Security didn’t seem to be a major concern here, since both this door and the inner door were propped open.
Though there were tenants hanging out on the front steps of many of the other buildings on the block, no one was in evidence here. I went inside and up the stairs.
Guillermo Gutierrez lived in 5B, which proved, as I had feared, to be the top floor. There was no cross-ventilation in the building, and I was dripping sweat by the time I reached the fifth floor. I knocked on 5B and got no answer, again no surprise. I tried the door. It was locked. In the movies, detectives have a set of skeleton keys or know how to pick a lock. Failing that, they kick the door down. I have none of those talents. If a door is locked, I can’t get in.
I went back downstairs. The door in the back of the hall on the first floor was open, and I figured that to be the super’s apartment. I thought about knocking on his door and asking him about Gutierrez, but decided against it. You start asking questions and people get suspicious and clam up on you.
I went out to my car, opened the trunk, and took out my briefcase, the pure black imitation leather one that was supposed to help give the impression that I was a lawyer. I opened it up, and took out my Canon Snappy 50, the camera I use to take pictures of broken legs and cracks in the sidewalk.
I closed the briefcase, locked the trunk, and reset the code alarm on my car, the computerized $250 warning system and ignition cutoff switch without which my ‘84 Toyota would not have lasted a day in the neighborhoods I visit.
I went back inside, pulled out the switch for the flash attachment, and was relieved to see that, although the batteries were weak and it took a while to warm up, the light indicating the flash was ready finally went on. I began taking flash pictures of the staircase, just as I would if I were doing accident photos for a personal injury case.
In some of the cases I handle, there is no defect where the client fell down, and therefore no liability. In those cases, Richard will sometimes send me back to try to get a camera angle on some small crack or crevice so that it looks like a precipice. I’d have had no such problem here. One of the stairs was cracked in two, one of the risers was separated from the stairwell, and a good six feet of the handrail on the wall was missing. I concentrated on these defects, and had some pretty good liability shots in the can before the flash attracted the super out of his apartment.
The super was a skinny Hispanic of about 45, with short black hair, and a small, close-trimmed mustache. He was dressed in a white sleeveless undershirt and shorts. He was hot, tired, and hostile. His attitude gave the impression that my presence in the building had caused him to have to move, and for that he hated me.
“Hey, what you doin’?” he asked.
“Taking pictures.”
“I see that. Why you takin’ pictures?”
“Someone fell down the stairs and hurt himself.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
I took out my notebook, made a show of looking up the name. “Guillermo Gutierrez.”
The super snorted. “Oh, him. So why you take pictures?”
“This guy fell down the stairs and hurt himself. He’s gonna make an insurance claim.”
“You gonna sue?”
“We don’t use the word sue. We call it ‘making a claim.’”
“You call it anything you like. You gonna sue, you gonna sue. Who you gonna sue?”
“I don’t know. That’s not my department We might have a claim against the owner of the building, or the landlord, or the real estate agent.”
“You gonna sue me?”
“You the super?”
“That’s right. You gonna sue me?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“How you know that?”
I smiled at him. “Cause you ain’t got no money.”
He looked at me for a moment as if deciding whether or not to be angry. Then he laughed. “Hey, you all right.” He laughed some more. “Who are you, anyway?”
I took out my I.D. as a private detective. It was in a brown leather folder that opened up to show a photo I.D. of me in my suit. At the top it said “SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR.” Below, in smaller print, “LICENSED BY.” Below that, in big print again, “STATE OF NEW YORK.” Below that, three lines: one, small print, “THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT”; two, typed in a blank, “STANLEY HASTINGS”; three, small print, “IS EMPLOYED AS A SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR.” Below that, small print, “SHIELD NO.” and a blank, left blank, since I am not a cop. Finally, below that, the authorized signature of the private detective who had gotten me the license.
Technically, the license only empowered me to work as a private detective for his agency, which I didn’t, and not to run my own agency. But technically, I didn’t run my own agency, as I had no employees, and I had a perfect right to do what I was doing, and if anyone ever complained, the worst that could have happened would have been I might have had to take down the signs on my door and in my lobby, which were there mainly to amuse my friends anyway.
At any rate, it was a genuine I.D., and it was invaluable in my work. I�
��d go into a bar where a woman fell and broke her leg, show it to the owner, tell him I was investigating an insurance claim, and he’d assume I was from his insurance company and let me take pictures of anything I wanted, never dreaming I was actually working for the person who was trying to sue—excuse me—making a claim.
He took the ID., looked it over. A silly grin came over his face.
“You private eye?” he said.
“Guilty as charged.”
“You shoot people?”
“That’s just on television,” I told him.
“Yeah, TV,” he said.
I decided to trade on the image. “Look,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with this guy, Gutierrez, for four or five days. He doesn’t answer the phone. He doesn’t answer the door.”
“What you want him for?”
“You like to get paid?”
He stared at me. “What, are you nuts? I like to get paid? Sure I like to get paid.”
“Yeah, well I like to get paid, too. And I don’t get paid until I find the guy.”
“What you want him for?”
“He has to sign some papers for his lawyer.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s enough.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. You talk to Rosa?”
“Who’s Rosa?”
“His girlfriend.”
“What’s her name?”
“Rosa.”
“What’s her last name?”
“I don’t know. Her name’s Rosa. Only name I know.”
“Where would I find this Rosa?”
“She usually here.”
“Well, she’s not here now.”
“No?”
“No. Where else might she be?”
“She live around the corner.” He made a circular gesture indicating around and to the south. “On B.”
“You know her address on Avenue B?”
“No. Right around the corner. Over the candy store.”
“Which candy store?”
“Only one on the block.”
“You seen her around here lately?”
“I don’t know.”
“You seen Gutierrez around here lately?”
Again. “I don’t know.”
“O.K., look,” I said. “I’ll talk to this Rosa, but right now I’m talking to you. And I gotta tell you, I’m a little worried about Gutierrez. See, he got hurt in the fall, you know. Now, just between you and me, I talked to Gutierrez before and, I can tell, he takes a little drugs, you know?”